The mystery disease that changed psychology

[Eldorado]

Back in the late 19th century, victims of railway accidents began to experience a host of inexplicable symptoms that doctors simply could not make sense of.

No one was sure what, exactly, caused the onset of these strange symptoms that had never been seen before and that only seemed to appear after a rail accident.

But one doctor, Sir John Eric Erichsen, came up with a name for it: railway spine.

After a series of train crashes in Great Britain in 1867, many victims came forward to claim that they had suffered long-lasting effects, that included a variety of symptoms.

Some of them were purely mental. Others had physical manifestations, some of which couldn’t be traced to an identifiable source.

Full article at Jalopnik: Link